Appiphilia: Job searching when left to your own devices

Today's smart phones can make searching and applying for a job a mobile adventure. Credit: Rick Bowmer / Associated Press

I don't know about you, but I'm a multitasking madwoman. I work hard and require anything I have around me to work at least as hard. I carry both a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and both have to be able to keep up. (Sleep mode is for the weak.)

One of the key things you should be able to do with your smart phone is network. With social networks rising to prominence among the working generations, there are some apps that take advantage of that mode of connection.

Both BlackBerry and iPhone have apps for the requisites of social networking: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter clients.

The iPhone takes the mobile work life a little further. You might just be able to connect with that new gig without even having to look up from your screen -- although most employers rank potential employees a little higher for actual eye contact.

beamME CV ($5.99)

What it is: This app lets you send a resume using e-mail, text message or Twitter. Ultimately, though, the document is delivered by e-mail. The iPhone won’t upload documents directly to Safari, so you have to use a computer for that part. But you can use the iPhone to set up a contact card and customize your "cover letter." The app keeps track of your sending history -- and location, if you turn on that option.

Bottom line: A convenient enough, paperless and relatively low-effort way of responding to the serendipity of job opportunities and following up with your curriculum vitae in real time. The company says the app might be a tax-deductible tool in your job search. (Might want to e-mail, text or tweet your tax advisor on that one, though.)

Resume Pro ($1.99)

What it is: If you haven't had the chance to revamp your resume but need a quick outline of your experience to offer a potential employer, this app helps you create an insta-resume. In other words, you provide the details, add water and send. You could technically excuse yourself from a meeting and, in about five minutes, compile a visually inoffensive presentation.You can even add a photo and references if you wish.

Bottom line: It’s a tad more limited than the other app. The cover letter really is a form letter that you cannot edit -- not ideal when applying for a position. The PDF itself is bare bones but definitely serviceable.

Need others? It seems like there are more iPhone app options than jobs available these days. Here are a few to help with the job search:

• CareerBuilder.com Jobs* (Free)
• iJobs (99 cents)
• JobCompass (Free)
• NowHiring (99 cents)

What apps do you use to make your job easier? Tweet us on @Appiphilia or drop a line at Facebook.

-- Michelle Maltais

*CareerBuilder.com is a joint venture owned by Tribune Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times; McClatchy Co.; Gannett Inc.; and Microsoft Corp.

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The Pirate Bay: sold and (gasp) reformed?

The recent prosecution of The Pirate Bay, a popular site for finding and downloading bootlegged movies, songs, video games and software, suggested that the company's gleeful flouting of copyright law might not be sustainable. (The Stockholm District Court sentenced four of The Pirate Bay's leaders to a year in jail after finding them guilty of violating copyrights, and fined them close to $30 million.) Something had to change at TPB, and it looks like it's going to be three things: the ownership, the business model and the infrastructure. Whether the site ends its love affair with all things bootlegged, however, is another question entirely.

Variety reported that Swedish video game company Global Gaming Factory X agreed to pay about $7.7 million to buy TPB, although the site's blog hinted that the deal was still tentative. (Apprently, the buyer still has to raise the money.) Variety quoted Global Gaming CEO Hans Pandeya as saying the value in TPB was its traffic: more than 20 million visitors and 1 billion page views a month.

"In order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users and the judiciary," Pandeya said. "Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."

But as TPB's blog notes, "If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to." Loosely translated, that means Global Gaming will quickly lose those 20 million visitors if it tries to stop users from downloading "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" for free....

Dueling spins on the Cablevision ruling

The Supreme Court left intact the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Cablevision's network DVR service, a move that almost certainly will lead more cable operators to offer TiVo-like services without putting recorders in their subscribers' homes. Advocates on both sides raced to put their own spin on the court's decision, which the justices issued sans comment. Here are two typical ones: Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Assn., said the decision was important to innovation in remote computing and data storage, such as Google's online applications and Apple's .Mac (now called MobileMe) service. Patrick Ross, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, countered that the decision "is unfortunate and potentially harmful to creators and creative enterprises across the spectrum of copyright industries."

But as the Justice Department noted in its brief, which urged the justices not to take up the case, the 2nd Circuit's ruling may not have much bearing on other companies' services.

Apple: Jobs back in the captain's chair

Apple COO Tim Cook (left), CEO Steve Jobs and senior vice president Phil Schiller at a meeting last October. Credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press.

He's back.

Steve Jobs returned to work at Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus, company spokesman Steve Dowling said. Jobs in January took a six-month medical leave of absence, saying he would return at the end of June. And it appears Jobs has fulfilled his promise.

"He's at Apple a few days a week, and working from home the rest of the week," Dowling said. "We are very glad to have him back."

Neither Jobs nor Apple revealed the nature of his illness while he was absent. Only weeks ago, it was reported that Jobs underwent a liver transplant during his leave. He was described by his physician as being "the sickest patient" on the list of transplant candidates at the time of his surgery. The disclosure startled Apple observers and led some securities experts to question whether the company withheld information that would have been material to investors.

The 54-year-old co-founder of Apple, known for his relentless attention to detail, is seen by some as the driving force behind the company's products. He was pushed out in 1985 but returned to a weakened company in 1997, and has since built an organization that thinks much the way he does. That, analysts said, has led to minimal operational disruptions -- both while he was away and now that he is back.

"I think the executives know who runs the ship," said Danielle Levitas, an analyst at IDC. "I don't expect his return to be problematic. The bigger strategic issue for Apple is how to get all those senior executives who have taken on more responsibility to continue to stay in the spotlight as much as possible because there are lingering concerns about his health. Investors need to see a team in place that is capable of creating amazing products." 

-- Alex Pham

Facebook hires former Genentech exec Ebersman as its new CFO

David Ebersman. Credit: Genentech Inc.

Facebook announced today it had hired former Genentech Inc. executive David Ebersman as its chief financial officer.  Ebersman, who will formally start in September, was at Genetech for 15 years, including as its vice president and CFO between 2006 and 2009. 

“We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook," wrote Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a statement. "He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook.”

Ebersman left Genentech in April, just after the firm was acquired by Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate Roche in a $47-billion takeover. At the time, Facebook said it was looking for a CFO with "public company experience," after the departure of former finance head Gideon Yu. Yu, who himself had experience at Google's YouTube and Yahoo, both public entities, held the job for less than two years.

Ebersman's hire suggests that Facebook may be ramping up its plans to go public, a milestone that Zuckerberg has often alluded to.

-- David Sarno

Warner Bros. emerges as sole bidder for Midway Games

All over but the shoutin' for Midway sale? Credit: Togoodtobe4gotton via Flckr.

Times up! The deadline for submitting bids to buy Midway Games passed Wednesday afternoon with just one offer -- a $33-million deal from Warner Bros. to purchase most of the bankrupt Chicago company's assets.

After Warner Bros. lobbed its offer in May, Midway had hoped to spark a bidding war that would jack up the price. A Chicago investment group and several game publishers had been kicking the tires at Midway, according to a source familiar with the discussions. But none pulled the trigger on a deal.

"No other bids came in, so there's not going to be an auction," confirmed Midway's spokesman, Geoff Mogilner. 

Before the deal goes through, the Delaware court overseeing Midway's bankruptcy will have to resolve complaints by several creditors about the acquisition process. One of those is producer Larry Kasanoff's Threshold Entertainment, which produced two previous "Mortal Kombat" films and claims it has exclusive big-screen and TV rights to the series. Also objecting to the sales process is Tigon Studios, a production company controlled by Vin Diesel, which claims it is owed $200,000 for the star's work on the recently released game "Wheelman."

The next court hearing to address those and other issues will be July 1. As soon as they are resolved and the bankruptcy court officially approves Warner Bros.' bid, the acquisition will close 10 days later, Mogilner said.

Warner Bros. declined to comment. An acquisition would buttress Warner's growing game portfolio, according to a report today in the Times.

The offer includes most, though not all, of Midway's assets, including the company's Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter, Joust and Wheelman franchises. It also includes two of Midway's four development studios -- one in Chicago and another in Seattle. It remains unclear what will happen to the company's studio in Newcastle, U.K., which makes the Wheelman games, and its studio in San Diego, which is developing a wrestling game based on a license with TNA Entertainment. Those assets could potentially be sold to another buyer.

-- Ben Fritz and Alex Pham

Michael Jackson-related traffic doubled Twitter's update frequency, tripled Facebook's [UPDATED]

Traffic to news sites in North America saw a massive spike as the Michael Jackson story unfolded. Times are EST. Credit: Akamai.

As the news of Michael Jackson's fate unfolded, sites around the Web felt the strain of spiking interest.

On Twitter, the volume of Jackson-related messages – up to 5,000 per minute at peak – put such a demand on the site that it slowed considerably.

“We saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in an e-mail response to our inquiry. “This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election.”

"Regarding performance," he added, "there were reports of slowness following the spike in activity. It highlighted an opportunity for improvement which we'll be acting on right away."

Online chatterers reported slowness at other social hubs, including AOL’s popular instant message system and at the blog site LiveJournal. 

The Los Angeles Times website creaked beneath the weight of the story as well, with nearly 2.3 million page views in one hour, more traffic than during any single hour last Nov. 5, the site’s highest-traffic day.

Facebook saw a frenzy of activity, too. A spokeswoman for the company said the number of status updates during the hour after the Jackson news emerged was triple the average. She said Facebook remained free of performance issues.

Traffic to the leading online news sites throughout North America was at least 20% above average, according to Akamai’s Net Usage Index, which monitors online news consumption around the world.

The intense interest among Web users was evident on sites that track which terms are most popular among users. Phrases such as “Rip MJ,” “King of Pop” and “Thriller” were among the most frequently used on Twitter, and on Google.com, “Michael Jackson died” became the most popular query.

Updated, 7:27 p.m.: A statement from AOL noted the following: “At AOL our AIM instant messaging service was undergoing a previously scheduled software update which should normally prove routine.  It proved not to be. There was a significant increase in traffic due to today’s news and AIM was down for approximately 40 minutes this afternoon."

The statement also noted that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

Updated, Friday June 26th, 1:24 p.m.: Yahoo is reporting record traffic too:  "Yahoo! News set a record in unique visitors with 16.4 million UV's in a day.  Our previous record was on election day when we had 15.1 million visitors.Yahoo! News had 4 million visitors come to the site between 3-4 pm, setting an hourly record."

-- David Sarno

Walt Disney, technologist [UPDATED]

Walt Disney (front) in his backyard on a model train that he designed and named the Lilly Belle. The train will be part of the new Disney museum. Credit: Walt Disney Family Foundation.

Walt Disney — the man, not the company — was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.

He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through places like his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World’s Fair of 1964.

The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.

Museum organizers — particularly Disney’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller — gave the press a preview today, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park.

The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep tight control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, “but I wouldn’t recommend it,” executive director Richard Benefield said.

Inside, what Benefield called “every kind of monitor known to man” will be on the walls. And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney’s voice to provide a guided tour through his life — his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, “Snow White” and “Fantasia” and his television and theme park operations.

Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in “Pinocchio” and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in “Mary Poppins.”

Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company is stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.

The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.

A 110-seat theater in the museum’s lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of “Fantasia.” Later, for the 50th anniversary of "Sleeping Beauty," Disney plans to re-release the film, “and we’ll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater,” Benefield said.

Corrected 10:30 a.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Snow White's 50th anniversary would be celebrated this year. In fact, it will be Sleeping Beauty who will be celebrating her 50th anniversary in November.

-- Dan Fost

Celebrities mourn Michael Jackson's death via Twitter

Even before it was officially confirmed that Michael Jackson had died, Twitter was buzzing about the pop icon as if he were dead. Once he died thousands of tweets a minute flooded the microblogging site, many from celebrities. Below is a small sample of unedited entries from some musicians, athletes and personalities as they tweeted through the pain.

MC Hammer: I will be mourning my friend , brother, mentor and inspiration.. He gave me and my family hope. I would never have been me without him.

Jane Fonda: I am stunned. My friend, Michael Jackson is dead. He lived with me for a week on "Golden Pond" set after "Thriller."

Katy Perry: Oh my God.

Greg Grunberg: Terrible news about Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson AND Ed McMahon... they will be missed by all.

Ashton Kutcher: I plea to the press to respect his wishes of maintaining the anonymity of his children.

John Mayer: I truly hope he is memorialized as the '83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson.

Weird Al Yankovich: Oh man. Can't believe it. RIP Michael Jackson.

Pete Wentz: I have never felt this before in my life. I could measure my childhood 2 now on an mj growth chart. if this is true. Rip. The last legend.

Eliza Dushku: Listening to MJ at photoshoot when we all heard~ surreal.

Miley Cyrus: michael jackson was my inspiration. love and blessings

More after the jump...

Authors Guild defends Google Books settlement

Authors Guild President Roy Blount Jr. speaks out in favor of the Google books settlement. Credit: Valerie Shaff.

The Authors Guild, which hasn't said much since last fall after it settled its lawsuit with Google over the search company's book scanning project, today issued a statement defending the settlement against recent criticism.

Specifically, the letter by author and Guild President Roy Blount Jr. addresses the topic of orphan books, which are works that are out-of-print and unclaimed by any copyright holders. You can read the entire letter here.

The concern is that Google, having digitized millions of such books, would have a monopoly on them should the settlement be approved by a federal judge later this year. That's because the settlement lets Google use orphan works without first getting approval from their authors. The Justice Department has reportedly started an inquiry into these antitrust concerns but has not said whether it has launched a formal investigation.

The number of orphans is tough to nail down. Some estimate it's 50% to 70% of all books published after 1923. Paul Aiken, executive director of the Guild, said that's hogwash.

"Our experience is that we can find upwards of 80% of rights holders once an effort is made," Aiken said in an interview.

In his letter, Blount argues that the number of orphan books, whatever it may be, will diminish over time as rights holders come forward to claim the money that Google will be obligated to set aside for authors for a period of five years and held in escrow by a newly created entity called the Book Rights Registry.

"As the registry starts sending out royalty checks, books will exit the orphanage in a rush," Blount wrote. "Nothing gets an author's attention like a royalty check. It's not an orphan-books problem that this settlement presents. It's an orphan-books solution."

-- Alex Pham